As the sport of mixed martial arts continues to evolve, the athletes that compete in the cage have begun to rely on cross-training and gym-hopping to develop as complete fighters.

When Dale Hartt (6-1 MMA, 1-1 UFC) stepped away from his normal routine at Xtreme Couture to train for his UFC 99 bout with Dennis Siver (13-6 MMA, 2-3 UFC) at Greg Jackson’s Mixed Martial Arts in New Mexico, it was for a simpler reason.

“I don’t know if my girl’s listening to the show, but it was an escape plan,” Hartt recently told MMAjunkie.com Radio (www.mmajunkie.com/radio). “My girl gets real nervous when I fight, and it creates a lot of distractions for me.”

Hartt’s normal cornerman, Marcus Davis, was forced to relinquish his spot due to his own participation in UFC 99’s main card. Hartt decided Jackson would prove an ample replacement – plus it was away from his girl.

“A couple things came together for me to come out [to New Mexico],” Hartt said. “Normally, I almost always have Marcus corner me. Marcus is my boy. Evidently he decided Dan Hardy needed a beating that night, and he wasn’t able to corner me.

“Secondly, I was kind of getting away from my girl. My girl gets real nervous and stuff and she drives me nuts.”

While the challenges of training in a camp that includes such talents as Rashad Evans, Georges St. Pierre, and Nate Marquardt, to name just a few, the gym wasn’t where Hartt found his toughest tasks.

“Obviously I miss my family very much,” Hartt said. “I’m a little more pampered in Las Vegas. I have a massage therapist and all these people. I have my little support network, and my life is kind of soft. But in Albuquerque, New Mexico, I’m living the rough life.

“I’m cooking for myself, doing my own laundry. It’s tough. I can barely make it.”

While half-joking, Hartt’s laundry experiences have proved traumatic.

“I always mix my colors and my whites,” Hartt said. “One time, I washed my gi – I used to actually wear my gi in 1993 or something – and I washed it with a pair of red handwraps. It bled, and I wore a pink gi for at least a month.

“It was a last-minute thing, and I opened the dryer door on my way to practice, and my gi was pink. I was like, ‘Oh, [expletive].’ Then I show up to practice and they made fun of me. So of course, then I had to wear it every day.”

Hartt makes it a point not to take things, or himself, too seriously. And while Saturday’s bout will be the first time the Massachusetts native has fought overseas, Hartt is less concerned with dealing with the rigors of travel than he is with planning his post-fight vacation.

“I have a friend that was an exchange student,” Hartt said. “I lived with him, and I talk to him all the time. He’s from Germany, and I hadn’t seen him in about five years. I was like, ‘Man, what a great way to get a trip to Germany and visit my buddy.’

“I’ve got one German fan.”

While Hartt has been “roughing it” in New Mexico, Siver also switched up his training by visiting his opponent’s home gym, Xtreme Couture. However, Hartt believes he may have gained as much as Siver did from the experience.

“Don’t tell [Siver] that they have a camera at Xtreme Couture and I watched the practice every day,” Hartt said with a laugh. “There’s a plus and minus to him being at my camp. The plus is that those guys know me pretty well and whatever, and I’m sure someone’s pissed at me and dropping some dimes.

“But the negative part is that I have a couple of friends that I talk to every day on the phone. I’m not going to tell him who those friends are, but they followed him every day and tell me what’s going on. He probably thought he was really slick going to my camp.”

Hartt hopes to use that scouting to to put on a great show in Siver’s native Germany.

“I’m a competitive guy, and I’ve been known to hurl my mouthpiece in training a couple of times,” Hartt said. “But for the most part, I’m pretty mellow. I’ve gotten along with all of my opponents so far in the UFC, and I think me and Dennis are going to have a good fight.

“I think we’re going to get it on, and I think that he’s going to be looking to make a big show in front of his German crowd. I’m going to be looking to make a big show in front of a big crowd, also.”

And while Hartt refuses to issue a prediction, he does hope the performance proves financially beneficial.

“I hope that it involves some sort of large, monetary bonus,” Hartt said. “But I’ll be honest with you – the MMA gods are fickle beasts. I’ll take what I can get. I’m just going to go in there and give it my all, and I’ll let God decide the rest.

“I’m a pretty average guy in every way. I’m a blue-collar guy, and that’s never going to change with me. It is what it is, and I fight because I love it. I hope the day I retire that I have fights where people go, ‘Wow, that was a great fight,’ and the kind of fights that my son will look at and be proud of his dad. Other than that, I don’t really care about anything else.”

MMAjunkie.com Radio broadcasts Monday-Friday at noon EST (9 a.m. PST) live from the Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino’s Race & Sports Book. The show is hosted by Gorgeous George, MMAjunkie.com lead staff reporter John Morgan and producer Goze. For more information or to download past episodes, go to www.mmajunkie.com/radio.

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